Hillman City Haibun (Walkin’, Lichen)

As I noted in my last haibun post, walks = poetry. If you do not get a poem when walking, you have not walked long enough. Ask Charles Reznikoff, who was well-known for taking walks of 15 to 20 miles.

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Moonlit Night

The trees’ shadows lie in black pools on the lawns.

Or Meredith Quartermain who wrote a whole book of poems, Vancouver Walking.

Poet as witness in this time between times, this time of whole-systems transition. The global climate system is wobbling, as is capitalism, while we somehow regard it all as normal. OK, maybe not the massive and repeated snow bombings of Boston and other freakish weather, but you get the idea.

Seward Park 2.10.15

But blessed is the poet who is a 5 minute walk away from organic golden beets and one of the best soy almond lattés in North America. Blessed is the poet who can walk for fifteen minutes from his Seattle home and be in an old growth forest. Blessed is the poet who has two beautiful daughters 20 years and ten months apart, so he could give them his undivided attention during walks like these during each of their childhoods. Blessed is the poet who stops to wonder why a yarmulke would end up in a tree.

Ella (& mossy lichen) in Seward Park, 2.10.15

2.10.15 – I’m not likening her to lichen, but I like that she likes lichen.

2.11.15 – Pigeons circle Lakewood Community Church to avoid the ceramic owl.